“I think leaving the horses out front was our biggest mistake! He probably recognized them,” Lucas shouted at Emily once they were galloping away from the saloon. Any second now, the ranger would figure out what had happened and be on their tail. The day’s head start he’d thought they could count on had just diminished into a five-minute head start.
“Maybe!” Emily shouted back, clearly shaken by the ordeal. Lucas felt slightly guilty for putting her through all this, but he admittedly found it exhilarating. It was far from the first time he’d been stuck in a chase with someone who wanted his head, but it was a first for Emily. Never before had she been forced to jump out of a second-story window to avoid a ranger.
As Lucas had suspected, it hadn’t been a straight shot down back at the saloon. They’d been able to hop onto the roof of the kitchen’s outbuilding and then make it to the ground. Hardly the toughest jump he’d ever made, but not one he’d ever thought he’d be doing with his fiancée at his side.
“He’s behind us! What do we do? What if he shoots at us?”
Lucas looked back. Indeed, the ranger had finally gotten on his horse again and was doing his best to catch up to them.
“He won’t shoot. We’re too far away. He won’t waste his bullets!”
“That’s good, but how do we lose…”
The sound of a train whistle blowing in the distance cut Emily off. There, perpendicular to the direction they were galloping in, was an approaching train, threatening to effectively cut off their path. There was no way around it on either side, and waiting for the train to pass would give the ranger more than enough time to catch up with them.
“Lucas!” Emily cried out, her fear ringing through the air.
“I know. Keep riding,” he replied, even though he had no idea what to do. A shoot-out would surely spell disaster. Emily’s gun had been dropped in the escape from the saloon, and the ranger would surely be carrying two pistols.
The train whistle carried across the flat land once more, and the engine of the train crossed their path just some three hundred feet in front of them. Any hopes of putting a train between them had passed. There was only one thing left to do. Lucas didn’t like it, and Emily certainly wouldn’t like it, but she’d forgiven him for so much already, he was sure she’d see fit to show mercy one last time.
“We have to jump on the train!” he shouted, looking back to make sure the ranger was still a good distance away. He was gaining on them.
“What? Jump on the train? I was kidding when I suggested that!”
“I’ll do it first, then you ride alongside, hand me the bags, and I’ll grab you. Got it?”
“Got what? Lucas, I can’t—”
“We can talk about it later!” he interrupted, turning his horse sharply to the right and running alongside the train. As soon as an open freight door came into view, he tossed his bag into the darkness and made the leap. It wasn’t until he was hanging from the door that he remembered he only had the use of one good arm.
The wind whipped across his face and threatened to send him flying, but once he got one foot hooked on the inside, he was able to pull himself to safety. Breathing hard, he turned around in time to see Emily galloping alongside the freight car, livid with anger.
“Pass me your bag!” he called out.
“Lucas Taylor, you’re a menace! You’re going to get us killed!” she shouted back. Nonetheless, she threw him her pack. He caught it, and pain seared through his injured arm. Lucas did his best to keep the agony from his face. Now more than ever, Emily needed the brave version of him.
“That’s perfect. Now, ride a bit closer and take my hand!”
Glaring at him, Emily did as he instructed, expertly guiding Poppy dangerously close to the greased and sparking wheels rushing along the track. When there was no more reason to delay, she reached out for Lucas’ hand, and he held firm, offering her a bit of stability before making the jump.
With a loud grunt, Emily pushed off Poppy and made it to the freight car safely. The force of her pushed both of them backward onto the floor of the car. Lucas clung to her waist as she recovered on top of him, hardly believing that they’d managed to pull it off.
“You’re a monster!” Emily bawled, pushing herself off him once she’d caught her breath.
“I know that wasn’t easy—”
“I’ve had Poppy since I was a girl. And now…now I’ll never see her again.” She crawled to the edge of the open door, looking back toward the way they’d come. Lucas followed. There in the distance were their two horses, still galloping after the train. Not far behind them was the ranger, throwing his arms up in frustration. If putting distance between themselves and the ranger had been the goal, they’d certainly been successful.
“I’m sorry. I really am. I just couldn’t think how else to get out of that one.”
“Jumping out of windows and hopping on trains. What’s next?”
“Oh, that’s the last of it. We’ll have a quiet life from now on. Sunday services and reading in the evenings. You’ll teach me how to knit, and you’ll never have to hear another gunshot again. I’ll even make the ranch hands stop swearing. I promise,” he said, crossing his heart.
Emily sucked in her cheeks, and Lucas was pleased to see she was holding in a smile.
“You’re a filthy liar, Lucas Taylor. I’ll never have a moment’s peace with you around.”
“You always knew that. I told you not to come! I warned you that this wasn’t going to be for the faint of heart. Who would’ve thought the sweet cook I once knew would turn into a train-hopping outlaw? I have to admit, you’re better at it than you have any business being. Are you sure you’ve never run from the law before?”
She punched his good arm lightly and stopped trying to hold in her smile, instead bursting into laughter.
“What have you turned me into?”
“I haven’t turned you into anything, but I will say Joan Boot would surely be proud, and so am I.”
Right before his eyes, her laughter turned to tears, and he pulled her to his chest. She sobbed in his arms, and he held her, tangling his hands through her mess of curls. Emily didn’t need to say a word to explain her sudden burst of emotion. So much had happened in such a short period of time, and their circumstances were changing drastically every few hours. Death had never been closer, and life had never been so important.
***
“Where do you think we are?” Emily asked quietly as they snuck through the rail yard. Getting off the train had been just as tricky as getting on, considering they couldn’t risk simply hopping out as soon as they arrived at the next station.
After riding through the day and night in an empty car, the sweetheart outlaws were starving. Jumping out just as the train started to slow and taking their chances in whatever town they landed in was the only way forward.
“I have no idea. We were headed toward Des Moines. Maybe that’s where we are. There…let’s head toward the tree line and see what we can see on that hill. I think there’s an apple tree there.” Lucas pointed to the edge of the rail yard, where they’d be able to keep walking without worrying about any station attendants noticing them.
The apples were slightly sour, but neither Lucas nor Emily were in the mood to complain. The crisp fruit was exactly what they needed.
“If we were home, I could bake these into a terrific pie. Or make jelly. Or applesauce. Or cider!” Emily exclaimed, packing her bag with as many apples as she could fit in.
“You can do any and all of those things soon enough, I’m sure.”
“Do you think the ranger will be able to find us if we don’t even know where we are?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. If we could get horses, I’d say we ought to head to someplace away from the train line. The ranger will certainly look for us here as soon as he can catch up,” Lucas said.
“At least we know he’s nowhere near us for the moment,” Emily replied, reaching for his hand.
After checking on his wound again, the pair continued with their hike into town. Des Moines it certainly wasn’t, but it wasn’t a particularly small town either. Larger than Lado and definitely bigger than the Singer Outpost where they’d last had a run-in with the ranger.
Hand in hand, Lucas and Emily explored the wide streets of what was unmistakably a coal town. Having spent time in coal towns during his rodeo days, Lucas could recognize the black stains on the clothing of everyone they saw. He thought about how he might have been able to work in the mine and raise a bit of money for the next leg of their journey, but again, his wounded arm foiled that plan.
It likely wouldn’t have worked anyway. From what he’d heard from miners, the employers they worked for liked to hire people on for months at a time and often only paid them in company money, which would be useless anywhere else.
“Lucas, look,” Emily said, pulling on his hand. “It’s a courthouse.”
He looked up, and before them were the steps to an imposing-looking stone building with the scales of justice carved just above the door.
“That it is,” he replied, feeling like he was looking at the doors to his own judgment.
“I think we should stay here for a bit. Not that we have much choice anyway, without horses. But I think we should stay here, and I’ll go try and find a judge to talk to.”
“That’s a really fast way to get me arrested. Unless…now, don’t get mad, but I think maybe we should—”
Emily rolled her eyes and interrupted. “If you’re going to say that we ought to split up, I’m going to spit this apple right in your face.
“No! No, that’s not what I’m saying. Not exactly, anyway. What if I camp just outside of town? Keep my head down and all that. Meanwhile, you can try and find some temporary work as a cook, and see if you can learn what kind of a judge they have here. If he’s a sympathetic judge…I don’t want to say what I hope could happen after that.”
“I don’t want to get our hopes up either, but…I have a good feeling about this place. I really do.”
Remembering how Emily had wanted to leave the Singer Outpost saloon first thing in the morning, based on nothing more than a feeling she had, he was inclined to trust her. She seemed to know when it was time to go, and he wasn’t too bad at getting them out. If Emily thought this nameless town was worth staying in, then he was happy to go along with it.
“If you say so, Emily.”
“But I don’t want you to have to camp out again. It’ll take the ranger ages to find us again if he even can.”
Lucas shook his head. “It’s not worth the risk. A woman traveling by herself is odd enough, but you’ll be safer without me. A place like this might have my face on a wanted poster all over. I probably shouldn’t even be walking around with you in daylight.”
She clung to his hand but didn’t argue. They both knew he was right, but parting, even for just a night, felt dangerous, like it might be the last time they ever saw one another. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t an outlandish thought.
“I’ll bring you food, and I’ll work hard to find someone who can help. If that person doesn’t exist in this town, then I’ll figure out how to get us some horses, and we can try the next one. There’s hope yet,” she assured him.
“I feel so useless. I wish there was something I could do to contribute.”
Emily moved to stand in front of him, looking up with her blue eyes, hardly dulled from their arduous journey.
“We’re partners now, Lucas. There will be times when I’ll need your help. Times when I’ll be incapacitated and hardly able to move on my own. I pray such a day will not come, but these things are a certainty in life. I’ll need you to hold my hand and take care of me, just as I’m trying to do for you now. Besides, would a helpless man be able to pull me onto a moving train?”
She smiled, and Lucas’ stomach started doing jumping jacks. After everything they’d been through together, she still managed to make him giddy.
“If I remember correctly, you were pretty upset with me about that particular move.”
“We could have been killed! But I’d rather take a leap of faith with you any day than give up. Let me do what I can to ingratiate myself with the…I don’t know, lawyers and judges in town, I suppose, then we can decide what to do. Please, be careful!”
“I was just going to say the same thing to you,” Lucas replied. He desperately wanted to lean down and kiss her, but there were too many people around, and he didn’t want them to remember or notice a strange young couple.
“How can I find you?” Emily asked.
“I’ll find a spot to camp out just over that ridge by the patch of forest.” Lucas pointed to the edge of town, where there was a little tree cover.
“Alright then. Good luck, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Or tonight if I can’t find anywhere else to stay.”
Emily gave him what was left of the apples they’d picked, and they bid farewell, both choosing to say few words for fear of saying too much.
It didn’t take long for Lucas to reach the edge of town, which helped him feel closer to Emily. From the campsite he picked out, he could still see the top of the courthouse, where he was sure his destiny lay. Whether it be in that courthouse or some other one that looked the same, his fate would be determined behind stone walls.